


Quiet

by lindsey_grissom



Series: Scenes From A Life Together [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 19:09:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13910352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsey_grissom/pseuds/lindsey_grissom
Summary: During ‘the illness’: Mr Carson takes a moment in Mrs Hughes’ company to find some peace.





	Quiet

He hesitates a moment outside her door, fingertips resting on the handle. Is it too much to ask for this?

  
Surely it is; she is busy, they are all busy, he hasn’t had but a moment’s pause for days, not since he cornered Mrs Patmore, approached Doctor Clarkson in the village. How then must she feel, if he is so restless without news?

  
It’s wrong to intrude on her now, when she is taking a moment for herself but there is a great need in him this evening to see her, to simply sit in her parlour and feel her steady presence beside him.

  
He doesn’t think about shoring up memories and moments, can’t think about last times and never again, but these thoughts he does not have propel him through her unlocked door and into her sitting room.

  
She turns at his entrance and his heart clenches at the now familiar redness about her eyes. Her cheeks are dry, her nose pale; she isn’t crying now but at sometime she was and he wishes…

  
He wishes.

  
But wishes are for Princes and fools and he is neither and so he offers her a smile.

  
“I wondered if I might sit here a while, Mrs Hughes?”

  
He understands the confusion that furrows her brow; he is already in his evening livery, has not yet attended to everything he should before the day is over.

  
“What about dinner?”

  
Her voice is both smooth and brusque. The sound of it has confused him for days, but he is almost relieved now that he understands. Relieved that he has not upset her, not he, though she has been upset and worried these past weeks, hiding it with her tone.

  
“I have a few moments before the gong, if I could?”

  
He gestures to a chair, his chair as he has long thought of it, but makes no further move to occupy it. If she truly does not want him here then he will leave her to whatever peace she can manage; his own restlessness means nothing if it will only make her uncomfortable with him.

  
There is still a tightness between her eyes wrinkling her skin, but she nods in answer. “If you like, but I’ve a lot of work to be getting on with, Mr Carson.”

  
He takes a seat with unusual haste, thankful that she is allowing him to stay and worried she might change her mind if he takes too long to settle.

  
“I have no plans to disturb you, Mrs Hughes.” He pauses, waits for her to ask him what plans he does have, but she stays silent and he mourns the loss of those moments of levity between them. “I just want a minute or two of peace.”

  
He wonders if he is as poor a liar as he feels, while he meets her eyes and tries not to think how worn she is looking, how vulnerable she sometimes appears these days. Tries not to let on that he knows at least one of her secrets.

  
“Well, I’m not sure that you’ll find more of that here than your pantry, but I’ll not stop you.”

  
She turns her chair then, back to her desk and the papers she’s working on. The house budget perhaps, or the kitchen orders?

  
With her back to him he allows himself to sink fully into the chair, his hands finding his knees and gripping them tightly.

  
The tails of his jacket are likely crumpled beneath him and he can hear clanging from the hall that he should probably see to, but instead he sits and listens to the scratch of her pen, the quiet hums that escape her as she ticks something off.

  
He does not think about what might be, but takes deep breaths of the familiar air until he feels almost steadied again.

  
_‘Please be okay’_ , he thinks as she absentmindedly tucks stray hairs behind her ear.

  
Perhaps it makes him a fool, but in the quiet of her space he wishes just the same.


End file.
